EXCLUSIVE: Cops nab bank robber who escaped N.C. prison 37 years ago, built new life in New York

The door knock that Bobby Love dodged for 37 years came before sunrise last month.

The door knock that Bobby Love dodged for 37 years came before sunrise last month, the heavy pounding echoing through his crowded Brooklyn apartment.

It was 6:30 a.m. inside the second-floor home shared by Love, his wife Cheryl and three of their four kids. Bobby was still in bed, and Cheryl listened to the radio while sipping a cup of tea in the kitchen.

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"Police!" came a booming voice from the hallway, where a dozen NYPD officers and FBI agents stood on Jan 22.

A confused Cheryl opened the door, and the officers went straight for her husband. One cop asked Bobby if there were any guns in the house — there were not — before posing the question that transported Love to the back of a prison bus in the fall of 1977.

"What's your name?" the cop asked.

"Bobby Love," he replied quickly.

"What's your real name?" the cop shot back.

Bobby and Cheryl Love at their 1985 wedding at the Pink Houses in Brooklyn. (Michael Graae/for New York Daily News)

"Walter Miller," the man conceded.

"You had a long run, Mr. Love," the cop declared. "But it's over."

And so it was: After nearly four decades on the lam, neither Walter Miller nor Bobby Love could outrun the past. The man offered no resistance.

Miller, to the utter disbelief of his New York family and friends, was a fugitive North Carolina armed bank robber and escaped inmate. He was last seen by authorities while running into the woods near Raleigh, N.C.

His transformation into Bobby Love — devoted dad and caring spouse, breadwinner and churchgoer — was completely at odds with his criminal past.

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But there was no denying it: The two men were one and the same.

Walter Miller, who later became Bobby Love, is seen in a North Carolina mugshot.

After a tearful goodbye with Cheryl, Miller walked down the stairs to the street in police custody. The cops didn't put him in handcuffs until he was out of his family's view.

* * *

Walter Miller, North Carolina inmate No. 0283128, climbed into the back of a yellow prison bus on the morning of Nov. 8, 1977. The lone correction officer aboard was behind the wheel.

Miller was serving 30 years on a pair of bank robbery convictions — one from Aug. 13, 1971, and the second a year later. His earliest release date was nearly a decade away, but the prisoner already had New York City on his mind.

He was one of several inmates dispatched to do road maintenance from the Triangle Correctional Center. Miller, who at one point was allowed supervised stints outside of prison, had access to regular clothes. He was wearing a set of street clothes beneath his prison garb, and he was carrying some cash.

When the prison bus stopped at an intersection, he opened a latch on the rear door and bolted for freedom. He tossed the prison gear and paid a man $10 at a Raleigh bus station to buy him a one-way ticket to Manhattan.

Bobby Love, seen with wife Cheryl, was arrested in January after 37 years on the lam. (Pearl Gabel/New York Daily News)

At the end of the ride, he found a new life.

His nom de New York was lifted from the late son of an old friend named Ulysses. He slipped into the identity of Bobby Love like an old pair of comfy slippers after forging a birth certificate to get a driver's license.

The new name didn't erase his old family ties. He called his sister Jean Miller-Levette on the day of her wedding — May 19, 1979. And he told her about his escape, without any of the details.

Love worked an assortment of jobs, and crashed for a time in an $8-a-night Times Square hotel.

He met Cheryl in the '80s when they were both employed at Baptist Medical Center in Brooklyn, and their first dates included the Prince movie "Purple Rain" and a concert by Gladys Knight and the Pips.

They were married on March 30, 1985. He was 34, and she was 21 and pregnant with their first child, Jasmine. The fugitive Love invited his siblings to the nuptials in the community center at the Pink Houses housing project in Brooklyn. He was identified on the marriage license as Bobby Allan Love, born (Walter C. Miller) on 11/6/50.

Cheryl Love says she hopes her husband will be granted clemency, but North Carolina officials say he likely will have to serve 10 years of sentence — and may get added time for escape. (Pearl Gabel/New York Daily News)

Daughter Jessica followed two years later, with twins Justin and Jordan welcomed 11 years down the road.

The rechristened Love thought about telling Cheryl the story of his past, but worried about her response.

"My thoughts were that Cheryl would probably tell me to turn myself in," he told the Daily News from Rikers Island, where he's being held pending extradition.

The secrets of his past remained unspoken, although Love asked his sister Jean to come clean with his wife if he died.

"I told my sister, 'Go ahead and bury me the way I am and tell Cheryl everything that has happened,'" he recalled.

Bobby wound up working two jobs to support his growing brood, and times got hard for the family. The devoted dad, often operating on just one hour's sleep, told his wife they would make it through.

Bobby Love with his family, who apparently never knew about his criminal past. (Michael Graae/for New York Daily News)

Relatives and friends said Love, while somewhat of an introvert, was never paranoid or overly concerned about the past derailing his present.

He became active at Coney Island Cathedral Church, did charity work and attended community meetings where the captain of the local police precinct appeared.

In 2004, he even appeared at the state lottery offices in lower Manhattan to collect a $50,000 Pick 5 prize.

"They gave me a big ol' check," he recalled in a story that lottery officials could not immediately confirm.

"I just wasn't worried that anything bad was going to happen to me," he continued. "It felt good with my life, my family. I get up every day and I thank God I'm alive."

Bobby Love is seen surrounded by his wife and four kids. (Michael Graae/for New York Daily News)

But he rarely spoke with strangers, barely socialized with friends, and seemed spooked when asked on the street for something innocuous like directions.

As time went by, the typically careful Love became bolder. He brought the family back to North Carolina for a vacation, his sister recalled, and made a handful of other visits.

Last year, he attended funerals for two of his nine siblings — one in North Carolina and another in Washington, D.C. Authorities aren't saying, but Love thinks someone at one of the funerals — possibly a relative in law enforcement — dimed him out.

* * *

Love's next Manhattan Criminal Court appearance is set for Feb. 26, and he's fighting extradition to North Carolina. He is currently on Rikers Island, a sad return to the life that he left behind.

A Manhattan judge shot down his lawyer's bid for home confinement. Cheryl Love, without her husband just weeks before their 30th anniversary, is still coming to grips with the whole thing.

"It was like I was in a movie — a Lifetime (network) movie," a teary Cheryl told The News about the day of the arrest. "All these years, you would have thought I would have put something together. But I had no reason to."

His prospects down South are bleak: North Carolina officials say he will likely need to serve the last 10 years of his original sentences, and could face extra time for the escape.

Love's family — which now includes a grandson — remains optimistic that officials in North Carolina will grant him clemency.

"I'm not ashamed of my father or what he did," said daughter Jessica, 27. "Shocked, surprised — yes ... My father was determined to change his life, and for 40 years or so he did just that."

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Lawyer Rita Mavunda says to ignore all that and put him behind bars would be the real miscarriage of justice.

"It would negate the work that he has put into himself, into becoming a better man," she said. "His life in the last 40 years proves that prison is not the only means for rehabilitation."